Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2018
Source: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Copyright: 2018 The Daily Herald Company
Contact: http://www.dailyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/107
Author: Becky Bohrer
STATES MULL 'SANCTUARY' STATUS FOR MARIJUANA BUSINESSES
JUNEAU, Alaska -- Taking a cue from the fight over immigration, some
states that have legalized marijuana are considering providing
so-called sanctuary status for licensed pot businesses, hoping to
protect the fledgling industry from a shift in federal enforcement
policy.
Just hours after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Jan.
4 that federal prosecutors would be free to crack down on marijuana
operations as they see fit, Jesse Arreguin, the mayor in Berkeley,
California, summoned city councilman Ben Bartlett to his office with a
novel idea.
Berkeley was already the first city in the nation to formally declare
itself a sanctuary city on immigration, barring city officials from
cooperating with federal authorities. Why not do the same thing with
marijuana? Last month, it did.
"We knew we had to do something," Bartlett said. "This is a new engine
of a healthy economy."
Others may soon follow Berkeley's lead: Alaska, California and
Massachusetts lawmakers are among those with similar bills pending,
though the chances for passage is unclear.
Alaska state Rep. Adam Wool, who owns a movie, restaurant and concert
venue with a liquor license in Fairbanks, said he introduced his bill
as both a statement and a precaution.
"If the federal government wants to prosecute someone for breaking
federal law, I guess they have every right to do that," said Wool, a
Democrat from one of Alaska's major marijuana-growing areas. "I'm just
saying, we will have no obligation to assist them."
Sessions' announcement invalidated a 2013 policy that allowed for
legalized marijuana to flourish by limiting federal enforcement of the
drug, as long as states prevented it from getting to places it was
outlawed and kept it from gangs and children. His action also
unsettled the industry and spooked potential marijuana industry
investors. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.
Casey O'Neill remembers helicopter enforcement raids of grow sites in
California when he was growing up in the 1980s. It was then that his
parents, carpenters who grew small amounts of cannabis, became school
teachers, he said.
He now helps run a farm that produces vegetables and marijuana for
medical use near Laytonville, California, and is glad lawmakers are
looking at ways to push back against the federal government.
Over the years, enforcement "has been uneven, we'll say, and that's
kind of one of the things about it. It just means that everybody's
always afraid, and that's hard," he said.
Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a marijuana advocacy
group, said California has a lousy history with the federal government
on marijuana enforcement.
"I don't think the feds care too much about marijuana in Alaska, to
tell you the truth," he said. "But marijuana has been a big industry
in this state, so we're sort of on the front lines."
There's no apparent panic in the industry over Sessions' change in
policy, given limited federal resources and prosecutors having had
discretion in bringing cases all along. But there isn't complacency,
either.
"I don't think the federal government is going to effectively step in
and wipe us out of business. I just find that hard to believe at this
point. But they can make it hard for us," said Jennifer Canfield, who
co-owns a state-licensed marijuana cultivation operation and retail
store in Alaska's capital city, Juneau.
Peter Mlynarik, a police chief in Soldotna, Alaska, called the Alaska
bill a terrible idea. He asked what would happen if a local agency
were helping the federal government on a heroin bust but also found
marijuana in the house.
"It's crazy to put that burden on, especially, police officers that
are supposed to obey federal laws," said Mlynarik, who resigned from
Alaska's marijuana regulatory board after Sessions' actions in
January, saying it stripped the underpinning for the state's legal
marijuana industry.
Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said he
can't see federal agents raiding businesses that are complying with
state law.
"But you can't put it past them," he said, adding that new U.S.
attorneys have been appointed by President Donald Trump in many
states. "I wouldn't put it past at least a few of them to want to gain
points with their boss. But I think, politically, it would be a
disaster for them."
Massachusetts' sanctuary-style bill was prompted by comments from that
state's U.S. attorney, Andrew Lelling, who declined to rule out
prosecuting commercial marijuana businesses that are legal under state
law. He later said his priority would be prosecuting opioid crimes,
not marijuana.
U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam declined comment
on the pending bills.
Associated Press writers Paul Elias in San Francisco and Bob Salsberg
in Boston contributed to this report.
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MAP posted-by: Matt